Someone is watching me!
 

Wow! I'm cruising this board, and OMG, every ad they show is absolutely in line with my recent searches:
swarovski.com
hostgator and mojo.com
closets unlimited.
I know this goes on, but it's so obvious. What do they know that's not so obvious. ...probably that I'm living a dull life!...well, not really; just a non-scandelous one.

[h=2]Someone is watching me![/h]
I've noticed that too. It's kind of creepy, isn't it? I wonder if clearing our cache, cookies and history before logging in would make a difference?

You can get an addon called AdBlock for your browsers if you are using Firefox or Chrome. Removes all the ads! I love it and it speed up page loading immensely.

Of course they are watching you. The board is set up to do just that. Give you ads for your serches.

AdBlock is an excellent suggestion. Targeted ads are chosen easily. Most sites you visit "deposit" a "cookie" on your machine. These cookies hold preference information for sites and allows the site to load more quickly the next time you visit. You can block these cookies but when you do - some sites will not load at all. You can also have your browser erase all cookies every time you close it.

IMHO - It scares me - how much information sites can glean from our computer browser. Clean out your cookies and remain vigilant about sites you visit and what you allow them to know and keep about you.

I use a free program called ghostery. It prevents the cookies from being downloaded so I am not tracked. It used to freak me out, too, when I saw ads for things I'd previously researched...

Just put adblock on - ads all gone in just a few clicks

In Firefox Tools/Options/Privacy, you can also tell sites you do not want to be tracked.
"Do Not Track is a step toward putting you in control of the way your information is collected and used online. Do Not Track is a feature in Firefox that allows you to let a website know you would like to opt-out of third-party tracking for purposes including behavioral advertising. It does this by transmitting a Do Not Track HTTP header every time your data is requested from the Web."

In the upper right corner of most ads there is a blue triangle. Click on that and it will take you to the ad preference page to see only ads you want. The ads are what pays for the board so I don't block them but i do use the do not track option. At least I see only ads I want to.
The ads do not know about you, they are set to ping target words on the page and then the ads are generated to show up on that page.

This is timely info - I was just having problems trying to get rid of multiple cookies dropped by 3rd party trackers. I realize that the ads are a necessary evil so that boards like this can be maintained without charging users but lately I have been swamped with ads and pop ups. Cleared out twice and still having them. Another thing that keeps happening only when I'm on QB is that Java has interrupted my session 6 times for updates in the last 32 hrs - very annoying - wondering why so frequent. I'm going to try to use one of the recommended apps and do another clear out. Hopefuly it will taper off a bit.